


Three Seats Behind

by my_mad_fatuation



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-22 00:33:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12469500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_mad_fatuation/pseuds/my_mad_fatuation
Summary: Rae is obsessed with Finn, the fittest boy at college. But he and his friends are cool and Rae is, well, a weirdo.





	Three Seats Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an original song of the same name.

She kept to the opposite side of the street as she walked past the row of houses where he lived. She slowed down, too, so she could watch him until he went inside.

She did this every day after school. Sometimes he noticed her there, but most of the time he was walking with one of his mates and didn’t pay any attention to the world around him. She kind of liked that about him; he was so focused on his friends.

Anyway, she was just glad he never asked her where she was going, since she lived in the opposite direction, and always had to loop around the next block to get home.

She could never walk _with_ him, though. She was not one of his friends on whom he was focused. She was too weird for that. The only time she’d ever spoken to him outside of school, she’d totally stuck her foot in it.

“Rae?”

She turned at the sound of her name to find him walking up to her. She was standing across the street from his house, thinking she’d missed him and he’d already gone inside, when he came up behind her. What was he even doing on this side of the road anyway?

“Oh, er, hi Finn,” she said to him.

“Whatcha doin’ out here?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing, I was just passing and I, erm, thought I saw a rabbit in the garden over there, so I stopped to watch it, only it wasn’t a rabbit it was a boot, and so—”

“Wait, stop,” he said. “Rewind a second; did you just say you thought you saw a rabbit but it was really a boot?”

“Erm, not a boot, er, a garden gnome,” she added quickly.

“What?” he said with a laugh. “How is that even close to a boot? And how would you mistake it for a rabbit?”

She looked around for a second hoping she could think of something clever to say, but she couldn’t so instead she said, “I gotta go,” and walked away.

“Later, then,” he called after her as she hurried off.

_He must think I’m completely mad_ , she thought to herself.

Lucky for her, it was Friday, so she wouldn’t have to face him at school again for two whole days.

What she didn’t count on, however, was (literally) bumping into him at the cinema while she was lining up to buy her ticket to see a film—she didn’t really care which one, she just needed to get out of the house for a couple of hours.

She was standing in line behind him and his friends, and hoped they hadn’t noticed her there. And maybe they hadn’t, because one of them made a snarky comment about some other girl’s shoes, which happened to be the same kind as Rae was wearing. She looked down at her feet out of embarrassment, praying that they wouldn’t turn and see her with her outdated footwear.

Looking down, however, meant she didn’t notice when the line moved forward without her until the person behind her tapped her aggressively on the shoulder.

She staggered forward, and crashed into Finn’s back.

“Jeez!” she heard him grumble before she realized that he’d been holding a drink in his hand and she had caused him to spill it down his front. He turned around to look at her, not angry so much as bewildered, and she began apologizing profusely.

_He must think I’m a nutter_ , she thought to herself.

“I need to go clean up,” he muttered as he handed his drink to one of his mates. “Get my ticket; I’ll pay you back,” he said before leaving towards the washroom.

His friends stared at Rae for a second, like she’d just ruined the evening for all of them. But then the line moved forward and they went up to buy their tickets, ignoring her existence once again.

When it was finally her turn, she bought her ticket for whichever film was next and headed into the theatre. She liked to sit near the front so she could immerse herself more into the film.

She was finding it difficult to immerse herself, however, when she could hear people giggling loudly. She looked behind her to see Finn’s group of friends a couple of rows back, and some of them were chatting and laughing while the others were just trying to watch the film, including Finn, it seemed.

He must have noticed Rae turn around, because he looked right at her for a second before swatting the girl next to him on the arm and whispering in her ear. She stopped talking to her friend on the other side and looked at Rae, too, who quickly returned her attention to the screen.

The giggling stopped for the rest of the film, though.

In fact, Rae didn’t hear the sound of his friends’ laughter again until Monday, at school.

She took her usual spot in the last class of the day, three seats behind him. She didn’t choose that seat; the teacher had assigned them all. Sometimes she would lean to one side of her desk so she could see around the two people in front of her and catch a glimpse of the back of his head. It was lovely.

See, the thing was that she kinda sorta loved him. She’d barely ever had a conversation with him, and yet she knew he was The One.

She spent most of her time daydreaming about him, and often found herself writing love notes to him in class. Occasionally she’d wonder what would happen if she gave one to him. Well, it would probably be humiliating. Unless he felt the same way about her, which was impossible. He barely even knew she existed.

“Rae, wait up,” he said to her after class, approaching her with a jog in his step as she headed towards the school’s exit.

She stopped and looked at him, horribly confused as to why he would be talking to her. “Yeah?”

“Chloe said you left this on your desk,” he said, holding out a scrap of paper in Rae’s direction.

Her eyelids flared when she realized what it was. “You didn’t, erm, read it, did you?” she asked.

He glanced down shyly at the paper in his hand. “Well, it said, ‘Dear Finn’ on it, so I sorta…”

“Oh, god,” she muttered as she covered her face with her hands. _He must think I’m out of my mind_ , she thought to herself.

“Did you mean it?” he asked.

“What did this one say, exactly?” she said, bracing herself for something horrible. Some of her notes were on the slightly more explicit side than others.

He sort of frowned and smiled at the same time, like he was puzzled by her question but also amused. “It said that you can’t stop thinking about me, and that I’m the, er, fittest boy at college,” he said as he scratched the back of his head nervously.

“Well…” she began with hesitation. “I mean, it’s not—I didn’t—You weren’t supposed to—”

“Cos I think about you, too,” he cut in.

“What?”

“I mean, yeah, I think you’re pretty cool.”

“You don’t think I’m mad?”

“Maybe a little,” he said with a laugh. “But I like that.

“Really?”

“I could, erm, walk you home, if you like.”

“That’s out of your way,” she said without thinking about it.

“I thought you lived near my house,” he said. “You’re always walking past there after school.”

“Yeah…” she said slowly. “Remember how you said that you like that I’m a little mad?”

He laughed again. “Yeah.”

“Well, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

“Okay,” he said. “Tell me as we walk.”

“Seriously?” she asked.

He smiled and held out his arm for her. “Seriously.”


End file.
